Iran's Chief of Police: You Know, the More I Think About it, the More this Neda Killing Seems Fishy. Come to Think of It, I'm Pretty Sure It Was "Prearranged" by the Protesters Themselves

The murder of 26-year-old protester Neda Soltan was staged, Iran's chief of police said Wednesday  a statement that rights groups and Iran watchers are calling a propagandistic lie.

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Soltan's family and those with her at the time of her death said that members of the paramilitary Basij militia drove by on a motorcycle and shot her in an alley near a major protest in Tehran.

But, according to Iran's Press TV, police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam declared Wednesday that the shooting was a "prearranged scenario"  a "premeditated act of murder" that could not have been committed by Iranian police.

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Moqadam led the investigation following an order from Ahmadinejad inquiring about the "suspicious" nature of the shooting. The Iranian president said even before the investigation that anti-government "elements" were behind the killing  presumably fingering either foreign agents or even the protesters themselves.

Iran analysts said the government's line was part of a "systematic lie" on which Iranian propaganda is based.

"They cannot deny [Soltan's killing] anymore, so they are trying to fabricate a scenario in which they are not accountable and Ahmadinejad now becomes someone who is seeking the truth," said Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The story has been completely changed upside-down," said Khalaji, who noted the 30-year-old regime's history of turning victims into violators. "The people who were oppressed  now they are accused of killing."